SES

  • The House will soon vote on a measure making it easier for the Veterans Affairs secretary to fire or demote senior career executives at the department, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at a Capitol Hill briefing Thursday. The VA Management Accountability Act allows the VA secretary to remove or demote members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) based on their performance.

    April 03, 2014
  • Proposals to make it much easier to discipline, demote or fire your career boss are rattling the top rank of the government, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.

    February 20, 2014
  • Would your life be better off if your top career boss had a little less job security? Senior Correspondent Mike Causey asks. Or would that put you between a political rock and a hard place?

    February 19, 2014
  • Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) is the author of new legislation that would make it easier for the Veterans Affairs Department to fire its senior executives. Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, says the agency is too shy about cutting loose middle managers who are performing poorly.

    February 17, 2014
  • The VA Management Accountability Act would give VA Secretary Eric Shinseki broad authority to remove Senior Executives Service (SES) members "if the secretary determines the performance of the individual warrants such removal," according to the bill. In addition to outright removal, the bill would allow the VA secretary to bump SES members down to the General Schedule at any grade level the secretary deems appropriate according to the bill.

    February 12, 2014
  • Last spring, as across-the-board budget cuts roiled through agencies across government, the White House decided to cancel the monetary portion of the Presidential Rank Awards, which granted recipients as much as 35 percent of their salary in a one-time bonus. But the White House maintained it was "focused on finding means to acknowledge excellence in non-monetary ways." The Senior Executives Association (SEA), in a statement released Monday said it still hasn't heard from President Barack Obama on those alternatives.

    January 13, 2014
  • The 2014 white-collar pay raise is not for everybody. Feds at the top of their grades in some cities won't be getting anything at all, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.

    December 03, 2013
  • The Obama administration trying a different tack on federal-employee bonuses and awards in fiscal 2014. A new directive from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management continues clear-cut spending caps on employee awards but won't outright ban them -- even if the across-the-board spending constraints, known as sequestration, continue.

    November 04, 2013
  • Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wants to know whether many of the federal government's Senior Executive Service members are deserving of the bonus payments they receive. McCaskill, who chairs a Senate subcommittee on financial and contracting oversight, wrote to the head of the Government Accountability Office, asking the watchdog agency to investigate whether bonuses paid to SES employees involved in contract management are effective tools in reducing costs or improving contract performance.

    September 25, 2013
  • What do you get when you put a group of Senior Executive Service members in a room together? A lot of straight talk about managing the short-term and long-term challenges of sequestration. Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, says the federal managers that participated in the recent discussion came up with real conclusions that "need to be said and heard."

    August 14, 2013
  • When it comes to salaries, federal executives are somewhere between Wall Street and Wal-Mart. But a new study shows that government execs are unhappy and worried about the future for themselves and their agencies, according to Senior Correspondent Mike Causey.

    August 14, 2013
  • A new report by the Partnership for Public Service and McKinsey and Company found inconsistencies among agencies in how they recruit and develop their Senior Executive Service members. That lack of standardized leadership development is causing some to question whether senior executives will be prepared to replace long-time managers who are retiring at a fast rate.

    July 24, 2013
  • The administration has suspended the monetary part of the program because of budget reductions. OPM will continue to accept nominations through Friday, however.

    June 12, 2013
  • Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and the GSA inspector general released separate, but related, reports that show GSA abused its authority to give Senior Executive Service (SES) members bonuses between 2009 and 2011. GSA official said they have since fixed these problems. McCaskill also found that on average the Labor Department, the Navy and the National Science Foundation handed out more than one bonus per SES employee.

    May 17, 2013